engineers design better roads — architects design better bike paths

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The Nescio Bicycle Bridge in Amsterdam was designed by Wilkinson Eyre Architects. The rest is just plumbing. Though if you should be Sir Colin Alexander St John Wilson, I apologize sir, the engineer’s aesthetic is better, as you say sir.

They’re *bike paths*. They basically *are* plumbing, of the transportational variety. It’s the sort of thing you want to get right in the engineering sense so that people don’t die. After that, then sure, let the architects paint flowers on them, or whatever it is they do.

“Where are the best bike paths?”
China. The best of them are so gorgeous that neither an engineer nor an architect could have been allowed anywhere near the planning. I think they were done by landscape gardeners.

“engineers like single big things — architects like many small things”
Contra-indicated by the architect’s love for the monolithic Apple OS and engineers liking the many small tools of *NIX from the console.

“architects break rules”
And then engineers have to enforce them, so, ya know, people don’t die and shit.

“engineers like reading . . .” the essays Energy and Equity by Ivan Illich and Life Without Principle by H.D. Thoreau. They think Twain’s To the Person Sitting in Darkness is a corker as well. Well, at least this one does. But what the hell do I know? I think fixies are the apex of man’s engineering achievements.